Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Monday booked a female photojournalist under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) for indulging in "anti-national activities" on social media, officials said.
A resident of Srinagar city, 26-year-old Masrat Zahra, is accused of uploading “anti-national” posts (on Social Media) with the criminal intent to induce the youth and promote offences against public tranquillity.
“Cyber Police Station received information through reliable sources that one Facebook user namely 'Masrat Zahra' is uploading anti-national posts … Facebook users are also believed to be uploading photographs which can provoke the public to disturb law and order. The user is also uploading posts that are tantamount to glorifying anti-national activities and dent image of law enforcing agencies besides causing disaffection against the country,” said the police in the statement issued by the Cyber Police Station (Kashmir Zone) on Monday.
Without giving any details of Zahra's unlawful posts, police officials cited a picture post she tweeted from her 2019 article in Geneva-based The New Humanitarian (TNH) news agency.
Police said a first information report (FIR) was filed on Saturday and an investigation is on. She has been summoned before the police on Tuesday.
The UAPA allows the government to proscribe individuals as "terrorists" and empowers the federal National Investigation Agency to probe such cases.
A person charged under the law can be jailed for up to seven years.
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For Zahra, the police action is an attempt to suppress her from bringing out stories of repression in Kashmir.
“They (police) want to silence me. They want to suppress me as I bring out the repressed voices and stories of Kashmir. During the past four years, I have been working really hard to learn and to create my space. There are very few female photojournalists in Kashmir and I am one among them, She told ETV Bharat.
She further said that the Police have nowhere mentioned that she is a journalist.
"Cops have identified me as a Facebook user. I have been sharing my archival images which have already been published in different Indian and international organisations on social media for which I'm being booked," she said.
Zahra's work has found a place in several publications including The Washington Post, The Sun, The New Humanitarian, TRT World, Al Jazeera, The Caravan and others.
THE CHARGES
On April 18, Zahra was booked under section 13 of the UAPA and section 505 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
While section 13 of UAPA pertains to unlawful activities, section 505 of the IPC refers to offences against any class or community that causes fear or alarm to the public. Punishment includes imprisonment for three years and/or a fine.
The section is also used to book individuals who allegedly make, publish or circulate any statement, rumour or report with the intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, any officer, a soldier in the Army to mutiny.
Recently, Zahra had shared photographs of a story she had done in December, last year. The story is about Arifa Jan, whose husband was allegedly killed by the Indian Army in 2000.
“Arifa Jan suffers frequent panic attacks nearly 2 decades after her husband was gunned down by Indian army in 2000, she can still hear the gunshots and sees her husband’s blood-soaked body when she thinks of him,” Zahra posted last week.
Zahra also quoted Arifa to say that the man was shot 18 times.
As per Zahra, she had initially been summoned to the J&K police's Special Operation Group (SOG) headquarters, Cargo, in Srinagar on Saturday but was never informed why.
However, following the intervention of journalist colleagues, civil administration officials and senior police officers, she was asked not to come to the Cargo. Following evening, the FIR was filed but Zahra was unaware.
She found out about the charges only on Monday after a friend informed her.
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“In the morning a friend of mine called me and told me some journalists had tweeted that I had been booked by the police. I saw the posts and then read more about the sections of UAPA I was booked under. I was speechless for a moment but my main concern at that time was not to panic my family,” Zahra said.
Zahra, like most everyone, has been staying home indoors in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s not like other shutdowns in Kashmir where one can go out to work because you can potentially be a risk to your own family if infected. So I had been home and not shared any of my work as I had essentially not been working. Recently I shared photographs I had clicked for a story I had done in 2019. That is what seems to have irked the police,” she said.
MEDIA GAG?
Meanwhile, journalists from the region reacted strongly to the charges against Zahra.
In a statement released on Monday, the Kashmir Press Club condemned the charges against her, described the move as harassment, and demanded intervention by Home Minister Amit Shah.
"It is very unfortunate that when the world is in a grip of pandemic and when we need to stand together to combat the COVID-19, police have started filing cases against journalists and harassing them," it said.
"This is unacceptable for journalists of Kashmir who are well within their rights to seek freedom of expression and speech as guaranteed under the constitution like other parts of the country."
The statement also mentioned another journalist, Peerzada Ashiq, who reports for The Hindu, who was questioned for alleged inaccuracies while reporting.
The New Delhi-based Network of Women in Media demanded the FIR against Masrat be dropped, and described the charges as preposterous in the extreme, amounting to intimation.
Kashmiri journalist Gowhar Geelani told ETV Bharat that "invoking stringent provisions of a draconian law" against Zahra "speaks volumes about the gags against the media to silence journalists, to control the narratives by use of force, and to contain the Kashmir story with lawlessness".
"This has been happening in Kashmir from the past three decades but since the abrogation of article 370 and 35A, this has become a norm. This will not silence journalists. It's their responsibility to report, criticise and gaging free speech won't help," he said.
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The National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peoples Conference (PC have also condemned the FIR against Zahra.
The Omar Abdullah's NC said that these incidents were "uncalled for and condemnable. The government should stop treating journalism as a crime", for Mehbooba Mufti's PDP it was a “systematic pattern of assault on freedom of expression”, while for Sajjad Lone’s PC "Things weren’t too good in the old state of affairs either but attempts to silence the media were not as brazenly and shamelessly implemented."
UNIQUE PROTEST
Normally, whenever something unfortunate happens to a journalist, the brethren express their solidarity with Silent protest, march etc. But, since the situation right now is not suitable for such a protest to put your point forward, the Kashmiri journalists for the first time opted for online protest. Journalists tweeted and changed their profile pictures urging support for Masrat Zahra.
"Since there is COVID19 pandemic outside, we decided to opt for a social media protest. With hashtags like iStandWithMasrat, JournalismIsNotCrime we made our voices heard. Masrat is not alone we all stand with her," Shams Irfan, a journalist working with a tabloid, told ETV Bharat.
NOT THE FIRST TIME
This is not the first time journalists being attacked or summoned. Post abrogation of J&K's special status, senior journalists like Naseer Ganai, Peerzada Ashiq, Haroon Nabi, Shahid Khan, Anees Zargar, Azaan Javaid and now Masrat Zahra have been put in the soup by the administration.
